June 2 - Day 65 - 'If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.' – St Therese of Lisieux

I’d noticed these pink flowers in several places along the roadside but never looked closely at them or knew what they were called. I stopped today to take a photograph and then spent a little while searching British wildflower pictures and descriptions to identify them correctly.

Red Campion (Silene dioica) has a vast number of other names, including Adders Flower, Robin Hood and Johnny Woods. The male and female flowers grow on separate plants and its nectar is important to a variety of wildlife. Although a variety of myths and symbolism is linked to them, it is suggested that traditional medicines used the seeds of red campions to treat snakebites.

Talking of medicines, Jesse Boot, chemist and philanthropist and founder of Boots the Chemist was born on 2nd June 1850. He is very much recognised in nearby Nottingham for the money and land he donated to the City. With huge value and recognition rightly given to the NHS last year and since it was founded, along with the important work done on the development of vaccines in Britain, it seems very sad that today’s news reports on increases in attacks on ambulance staff and more than 3,500 attacks on emergency care staff were recorded last year.

Not every tiny flower can be a rose but the impact of lots of lovely small flowers in the meadow, on the roadside or in the health service and research laboratories is certainly great. While not relaxing our ways to keep safe, we can all be pleased by yesterday being the first time since the pandemic began when no UK deaths were announced and we will shortly have 75% of all adults vaccinated. It seems a good time to recognise those who not only have provided invaluable frontline services but all those small flowers working hard in the background in laboratories to develop vaccines and develop and process tests.

If I happen to get bitten by an adder on my way to and from work (there are definitely adders in Derbyshire), then I certainly would prefer the antidote developed by scientists, rather than the crushed up seeds of the red campion flower. Although you never know they might be very similar in their compounds.